Joseph E. Murray pioneered organ transplants by swapping kidneys between dogs and observing how long the animals survived -- usually not long at all. The dogs' immune system invariably rejected the new organ, he noted, unless the donor and recipient were closely related. On 23 Dec 1954, he performed the first successful human kidney transplant, inserting one of Ronald Herrick's healthy kidneys into his identical twin brother, Richard Herrick, who had end-stage renal failure. The surgery made national news, and both brothers emerged from the hospital healthy.

After the development of drugs that eased rejection of "foreign" organs, Murray performed the first kidney transplant between non-twins in 1959. In 1962 he performed the first successful installation of a kidney from a corpse into a living human. Murray was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1990, sharing the honor with E. Donnall Thomas, who developed bone marrow transplantation. Murray died in 2012.